


The Greatest Accomplishment

by Evidence



Series: Shelved WIP's [1]
Category: Jane and the Dragon
Genre: But he provides moral support, Dragon's not in this a whole lot, Gen, Self-Doubt, Tournaments, the original characters are mostly antagonists
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-22
Updated: 2014-05-22
Packaged: 2018-01-26 04:07:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1674152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evidence/pseuds/Evidence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Spit in his food,” she had overheard Gunther beseeching Pepper not three hours later, after Jane had finished seeing to Derek’s horse and given considerable thought to challenging him to a match for the sake of her much-wounded dignity.  It was only her honest promise to Sir Theodore that she would not make trouble that held her back.</p><p> </p><p>“Gunther!” Pepper snapped, looking like she was giving serious consideration towards smacking him with her spoon.  “Don’t be ridiculous!  That would spoil his meal.”</p><p> </p><p>“I doubt he’d even notice,” Jane found herself muttering, while she most certainly did not steal a leftover half loaf of bread and hide in the kitchen corner to nurse her wounded pride.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know. I shouldn't be allowed to watch children's entertainment. Fanfiction inevitably ensues. Title comes via a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote:
> 
> “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

 

 

It was in an early month of spring, when Jane was fourteen years old, that the largest company of the king’s knights returned home from their travels along Kippernia’s southernmost reaches.

 

Kippernia was not terribly large, as kingdoms went, but it was possessed of the prevailing philosophy that knights were best when they were seeing to their duties, and that a knight’s duty was to serve the crown and protect the realm.  This, Jane knew, meant that only a few knights were ever at the castle at any given time.  Most traveled, even while the kingdom enjoyed relative peace with its neighbours.  There had been a few that had returned and then set out again since she had attained her status as a Squire.  She had treated them with the same respect that she paid most figures worthy of admiration, at first.  In their turn they had largely ignored her, or else made a few joking comments to Sir Theodore about his teachings being good enough to turn even little girls into men.  Jane had swiftly lumped them all into a category of relative hopelessness after that, and moved on.  There was no point in kicking up a fuss.  Until she was a proper knight herself, there was nothing she could do, and while she _did_ feel frustrated and angry over it, she lacked any recourse to change that.

 

She at least had the consolation of knowing that they never treated Gunther any better.  His family name and his father’s reputation betrayed him in that.  The both of them avoided visiting knights whenever possible, and by silent agreement, never really brought up why.  It didn’t need to be dragged out into the open.

 

So when his majesty’s largest company – twelve knights, some with older squires of their own – had sent word of their impending return, Jane and Gunther had looked at one another behind everyone’s backs, and in a rare moment of complete solidarity, grimaced.

 

Gunther being Gunther, he was the first to recover and join in Sir Ivon’s excitement at the prospect of having new test subjects for his advanced weapons designs.  Sir Theodore was equally enthused; these knights had been gone for years, led by one of his oldest friends, Sir Bertram, who was famed in story and song.  Jane allowed herself the brief hope that any true friends of Sir Theodore might share his measured outlook, and eventually got into the swing of things herself.  She did her duties and helped Pepper get ready for the feasting, and listened while Jester told Lavinia tales about Sir Bertram slaying enemy knights and rescuing damsels from wicked sorcerers.  She rolled her eyes when her mother enthused about _eligible young men_ coming to Court, and helped to ready the stables, and if, once or twice, she and Gunther shared another one of those _looks_ , well.  No one else was ever around to see them.

 

In the end, things were both better and worse than Jane anticipated.  Better because Sir Bertram was indeed a very dignified man of Sir Theodore’s same make.  Worse, because of the squires.

 

There were three reasons why Sir Bertram’s company had come to Court.  The first was so that the eldest of their squares could complete the trials for their knighthoods.  The second was to take part in the Royal Tournament in a few months’ time – a tournament which ran every five years, which tested the mettle and worth of knights from all across the kingdom and a few neighbouring lands.  The third was to take on new squires, for much of their company had been too long without the aid of apprentices, and the kingdom’s future knights might suffer for it.  This was how Sir Theodore explained it to Jane, and like many things Sir Theodore explained, it made good sense.  Also like many things Sir Theodore explained, the picture painted on the wall had only a passing resemblance to the reality on the ground.

 

Put another way, Jane was starting to think that every single squire and prospective squire who had ever lived was a beef-brained maggot-eating cockhead, herself (and _occasionally_ Gunther) excluded.

 

The first declaration of open war was delivered by Squire Derek, Sir Bertram’s own charge, who was eighteen and built like a small barn, and got a running head-start on making enemies by telling Jane that she was too old to be running around in pants and playing at men’s work, and then called Gunther ‘that slimy merchant’s spawn’ and told him he had his father’s untrustworthy countenance.

 

“Spit in his food,” she had overheard Gunther beseeching Pepper not three hours later, after Jane had finished seeing to Derek’s horse and given considerable thought to challenging him to a match for the sake of her much-wounded dignity.  It was only her honest promise to Sir Theodore that she would not make trouble that held her back.

 

“Gunther!” Pepper snapped, looking like she was giving serious consideration towards smacking him with her spoon.  “Don’t be ridiculous!  That would spoil his meal.”

 

“I doubt he’d even notice,” Jane found herself muttering, while she most certainly did not steal a leftover half loaf of bread and hide in the kitchen corner to nurse her wounded pride.

 

Pepper gawked at her for a moment.  Gunther came up short for a second, too, before gesturing emphatically towards her.

 

“You see?” he said.  “Clearly the man deserves a little spit in his soup if Jane and I are in _agreement_ about it!”

 

But, of course, Pepper absolutely refused to spit in anyone’s food.  Something about a cook’s code of ethics and personal standards and other things that proved there was no justice in the world.  At least she fed them both before she kicked them out in a huff.  Jane found herself quietly sitting at a table with Gunther, munching her bread and trying to relax some of her sore muscles, and nicking a few toasted seeds whenever he was too slow to smack her fingers away from the bowl that Pepper had thrust at him.  He glared, but it was a mostly habitual look, with no real outrage behind it.

 

“Must you be so obnoxious?” he asked.

 

“I wouldn’t need to be if you shared a little more freely,” she replied, unrepentant.

 

Gunther’s response was to hold his bowl of treats at his chest until he finished it; once he had, they were both out of time to spend in hiding, and so slunk away from their temporary sanctuary and out to face the world again.

 

Jane being Jane, ultimately, she lost her temper first.

 

It would have been very tempting to simply have Dragon come and breathe fire at every single squire in the yard until they learned not to behave like a horse’s hindquarters, but in the interests of avoiding confusion and not having an accidental war between the returning knights and the resident dragon break out, the king had asked Dragon to lie low.  Which Dragon had agreed to do, largely because a lot of bribery and placating tones were involved.  Jane knew he was holed up in a network of caves in the forest, taking the time to decipher some runes they’d found there while he practiced being ‘discreet’.  But even if he’d been readily at hand, getting angry and burning everyone wouldn’t really solve anything.  Especially since it would be relying on Dragon to fix her problems for her, which was not something she liked making a habit of.

 

So no, it wasn’t terribly surprising that Jane was the one to crack and challenge another squire to a test of skills in the name of knightly honour.  It _was_ a little surprising that the whole incident started when said squire – a lad named Reginald, who was Derek’s junior by a year but not much smaller or any kinder for it – tripped Gunther on the practice field.  On purpose.  While Gunther had his bow in notched in his hand, no less, so that when he stumbled the arrow went veering remarkably off-course and landed in the wooden post of a nearby practice dummy.  Jane had seen the whole thing the very second she had walked onto the field, and it had been enough to make her ignore the glares from the other squires, who were not too keen to share the space with a girl.

 

“Nice aim, Breech,” Reginald sneered.

 

“You tripped me!” Gunther protested.

 

The older boy scoffed and rolled his eyes, slanting a look at some of the young would-be squires who had flooded the castle in the past few days.  They laughed in response, already familiar with the new pecking order.

 

“Don’t blame your mistake on me,” he said.  “You stumbled.  Figures that a _merchant’s_ son can’t even keep his footing right.”

 

Jane gritted her teeth, because once, not too long ago – and probably again sometime soon – that had been her standing there, and Gunther standing where Reginald was.  But it didn’t feel like any kind of justice to see the tables turned right then, because at least Gunther had never been able to gang up on her.  He had been intolerable and snide, but he had squared off against Jane on equal footing, more or less.  Seeing him there with a jeering audience against him, he looked very alone and out-numbered.

 

“I saw you!” she snapped, clenching her hands into her fists.  “Don’t you dare say he stumbled when your own boot was at his ankle!”

 

“Sod off, girlie.  This is _squire’s_ business,” Reginald replied.

 

Jane saw red.

 

“I am Sir Theodore’s squire!” she snapped, yanking a practice sword down from the rack beside her.  She leveled the tip of it in his direction.  “And I will suffer your insinuations no longer!  You have impugned my honour and the honour of my comrade,” she insisted, addressing most of the practice field at large this time.  “I demand satisfaction.”

 

There was a moment of tense silence.  It was broken only when one of the prospective squires sniggered, and Jane shot him a look that could have bleached tar.

 

Nevertheless, the tone was set, and soon enough Reginald and half of his fellows were indulging in hearty chuckles at her expense.  Her cheeks reddened in fury.  In a sudden whirl of motion, she grabbed a second practice sword from the rack – the last one left unclaimed – and threw it as hard as she could into the dirt at Reginald’s feet.  The tip split the ground and it stood itself there, inches shy of his boots.  Gunther shot her a glare, which she categorically ignored.  The laughter petered off uncertainly at the sight of the blunted blade wavering in the sunlight.

 

Reginald scowled.

 

“There is no honour in fighting a maiden,” he told her.

 

“There is no honour in refusing a challenge,” Jane shot back.  “Or are you just afraid to lose?”

 

That did the trick.  Something grim settled into his expression, and reaching out, Reginald closed one large hand over the hilt of the practice sword and yanked it back out of the ground.  He brushed the dirt from it, and, with another glance around at his assembled fellows, grinned.

 

“Have it your way, then,” he said, ducking into a mocking bow.  Jane returned the gesture with much more severity.  “I think the old men have indulged your whims for long enough.  But never fear; I won’t strike you _too_ hard.”

 

Gunther promptly put a lot of distance between himself and Reginald, and not a moment too soon, as, formalities observed, Jane proceeded to charge him.

 

It wasn’t at all like sparring with Gunther, or practicing with Sir Theodore, or even the infrequent days when Sir Ivon had offered her some teaching.  Reginald was thick and heavy and hit like a ton of bricks.  When he deflected her first blow, it felt like she’d charged at a wall.  Not that it stopped her in the least.  Almost everyone Jane practiced with was stronger than she was; she was used to stealing her advantages in speed and agility, so when Reginald went on the offensive, she easily dodged him.  He was stronger than Gunther, but, in an unfair twist of fate, he wasn’t much slower to pay for it.  Every inch of him seemed to be made of muscle, and he knew how to use it.  For the first few minutes, Jane could tell her only advantage was that he _was_ holding back.  But that gave her enough time to adjust to the situation.

 

He was big and he was fast, but he wasn’t Jane Turnkey, and he hadn’t spent the past few years learning his lessons of knighthood at the back of a dragon.  Jane forced herself to go fluid rather than firm.  When he struck at her, she moved back and sideways, keeping him walking, keeping him from beating her down.  The biggest risk was in him being quick enough to catch her off balance, and he nearly did, first with a glancing blow to the side of her ribs, and again with a low sweep at her thighs.  But Jane was _just_ fast enough and steady enough to keep from going down, and she ignored the sting of pain with long practice.  She stayed on the defensive all the same, and as the minutes dragged along she could see the frustration starting to show on Reginald’s face.

 

“Come now,” he said, the eighteenth time she managed to just barely deflect him.  “End this farce and concede defeat.”

 

“End it?” Jane replied.  “But I’ve only just started to break a sweat.”

 

When they had been at it for nearly half an hour, she started to _really_ feel the strain of it.  Her heart was thudding and her chest was heaving, but there was the rush, too, that combat headiness that kept her sound enough to keep going.  She and Gunther could spar for days if they were driven enough, though they usually paid for it in full measure afterwards.

 

After a full hour, Reginald’s frustration had turned to full-blown rage, and he was no longer holding back in any sense.  Jane had a considerable swath of new bruises on every conceivable limb and rib, and if they’d had a full knight there to count points, she most certainly would have been declared the loser long ago.  But, perhaps too taken with the preparations for the tournament and the chance to spend their time with their freshly reunited brothers-in-arms, none of the proper knights had set foot onto the practice field.  Jester and Smithy turned up at some point, slipping in at the edges of the crowd.  She spotted them standing near Gunther.  By the second hour, Pepper and Rake had made an appearance.  Jane had noticed the crowd moving oddly, but hadn’t had much attention to spare for it.

 

Eventually Pepper disappeared again, and then the call to midday meal came along, and finally, _finally,_ Reginald swung at her so furiously that she just couldn’t stay on her feet any longer.  She hit the dirt hard enough to jar her teeth and bruise her hip, and only had time to feel a moment of surprise when the heel of a boot pressed down against the side of her head.  A brief, unwelcome jolt of fear lurched in her gut.  It was a move she hadn’t anticipated – she had gone down.  The match was his.  Yet he held her in place like that for a moment, and hissed at her under his breath.

 

“You’d best _stay **down** ,_ girl.”

 

Anger warred with the pain, and she clenched her fingers against the pommel of her practice sword.  Maybe she could-

 

“You’ve won the match, you lumbering clod!  Get off her!” Gunther’s voice broke the stillness, muffled slightly by the dirt and leather against her ears.

 

The pressure lifted from her head, and she let out a breath that she hadn’t even realized she was holding.  Her skin felt hot and stretched, the blood thundering between her ears as she pushed herself up, biting back a wince, and saw that Gunther had broken ranks from the crowd to stand in their informal combat circle.  He was scowling at Reginald, who was scowling back as he drew in ragged breaths, the tension in the air thick enough to cut.  No one was laughing anymore.  Jester had moved forward as well, though it seemed that the others had left; likely to tend to more pressing duties.  He was staring at Gunther in surprise.

 

Jane was too tired for surprise.  And anyway, Gunther might have been an inconsiderate biscuit-weevil sometimes, but he still generally adhered to the knightly code.  She turned towards Reginald.  The humiliation of defeat was an angry, gnawing beast in the pit of her gut.  But she could do no less than follow the code herself.

 

“I concede,” she said, as clipped and curt as possible.

 

Then she stalked from the field, replacing her practice sword, not wanting at all to stay behind and endure more jeering, or taunts, or insults.

 

She _hated_ losing.  More than anything, she hated that she’d lost to someone like _Reginald_ , to one of those thick-skulled squires; that she’d finally had it out with one of them and gotten herself ground into the dirt for it.  She stormed into her tower to tend her hurts, and avoided as many people as she could over the course of the next several days, throwing herself at the practice field when it was dark and the other squires had quit for the day.  She beat the training dummies until her arms refused to work anymore, and when even that did nothing to sooth the sting of failure still burrowing in her chest, she saddled up a horse and rode out to see Dragon.

 

Dragon showed her the runes he’d been figuring out, and offered to cook Reginald on a spit – which was a nice thought – and took her flying on informal patrol.  By the time she got back, she was feeling more like herself again.

 

On the return trip, she ran into Gunther coming in from town, and slowed her horse to a steady walk beside him.

 

“Want a ride?” she offered.

 

Gunther snorted.

 

“Because that’s exactly what my reputation needs right now – to be seen hanging off the back of your horse,” he tersely declined.

 

“Well.  You’re in a fine mood,” Jane replied. 

 

“I was already getting maligned enough on the basis of my family name,” Gunther snaps back at her.  “Now I have to contend with allegations that I let women do my fighting for me as well.  You had no right to challenge Reginald like that!”

 

Jane bristled.

 

“I didn’t challenge him for _you_.  He insulted my honour as well!”

 

“I know that!”

 

“Then why are you so upset about it?” she wondered.

 

“Because!” he all but shouted.  “You just had to go and lose your temper, didn’t you?  And now you’ve given them more ammunition against _me_ , and, I feel it prudent to point out, more ammunition against _you_ as well.”

 

Normally there were very few things that could motivate her like arguing with Gunther could.  But at that comment, she felt some of the wind fall out of her sails.  It dragged her back to the sinking pit in her chest, the one titled ‘failure’ and ‘weakness’, where all of her insecurities bided their time until life gave them the opportunity to strike out at her.

 

“Because I lost,” she said, giving voice to the truth of it.

 

Gunther looked away, his mouth tightening into a thin, unhappy line.  He nodded, once.  Two years ago, he would have viciously poked at her open wound.  But those days were behind them, and so he only kicked at the dirt, and glared at the road.  Then he let out a long breath.

 

“You couldn’t have won,” he said at length.  “Not in a fair fight.  Reginald’s all but a grown man and up for his knighthood.  None of those idiots expected a fourteen-year-old to last more than five minutes against him.”

 

“That is ridiculous,” Jane insisted.  “I beat _you_ all of the time, and you’re only a year younger than he is.”

 

“Which I find extremely heartening, I must say,” Gunther grumbled.

 

Jane rolled her eyes, but there was no curing his sour mood – and in truth, not much to be done for _hers_ – so she let the matter be.  Gunther nodded to her once they drew close to the castle, and left to attend his duties.

 

That evening, when she approached the practice field, she expected it to be empty as ever.  She was surprised when she realized there was a figure still there, and for a moment, her steps faltered.  But she soon recognized the straight dark hair, and long, still-growing limbs of the youth hacking vigorously away at his target.  Gunther, of course, which was even more surprising, given that his duties to his father most often saw him leaving the castle before nightfall.  She watched him practice for a moment.  It was a familiar enough sight, and she compared it to what she had seen of the other squires.  He wasn’t slow, she would say, but he was very careful; it was apparent that he often thought about his moves before he made them.  Still, he managed not to telegraph too many of his intentions, and his feints were excellent.  Perhaps he might have even been able to beat Reginald, had he challenged him in her place.

 

The thought renewed her determination to improve her skills, and she took to the opposite side of the field.  For a time they moved in silence, and she wondered if he’d even noticed her presence, or if he was too absorbed by his practice to see anything beyond his target.  But when she took a break to grab a drink of water from the pail, he stopped, too, and joined her.  There was a certain speculative gleam in his eyes.  The one he got whenever he was being particularly clever.  She felt a jolt of reflexive paranoia at the sight.  The last time he had that look on his face, she’d woken up to find her tower room infested with black ants.

 

“You are thinking,” she noted, as she tried to rub some of the soreness out of her thighs and banish the unpleasant memory away.  She’d gotten ant bites in more places than she would ever care to recall that week.

 

“Mm.  You should give it a try sometime, it’s really quite a useful habit,” he replied, and she gave him a flat look for it.

 

“Ha ha.  Keep it up the way that you have been and hair your hair will soon be as grey as Sir Theodore’s.”

 

“Vanity, Jane?”

 

“Only worried about yours, Gunther.”

 

She smiled at him with exaggerated sweetness.  The corners of his mouth twitched up, and he downed a healthy drink of water himself before grabbing her arm and dragging her into the middle of the practice field.  The dangerous gleam never left his eye.

 

“Reginald was strong, wasn’t he?  And fast enough,” he says more than asks.

 

Jane nods anyway, hefting up her practice sword again, and taking a shield, too, when he passed her one.

 

“It was rather like hitting Dragon,” she admitted.

 

“Good thing they’re having the knighting ceremony before the tournament, then,” Gunther replied with a nod.  “That will give us another five years to catch up.”

 

Then he hefted his own shield into place and swung at her, suddenly fierce, and she immediately moved to block him.  There was a familiar impact as he put the considerable force of his strength behind his opening move, and Jane held him off, falling into their well-worn routine.  Perhaps that was a problem, she thought, as she tried to throw him off-balance.  Perhaps they’d been too long with only one another to measure themselves against, and so when someone new came into the picture, the dance changed, and they were only left scrambling to catch up.  Or she was, at any rate.

 

They kept at it for a few minutes, before she managed to get in a series of quick, sharp strikes, and rebounded jarringly off of a blow from his shield.  There was a sharp clatter.  She dug in her heels.

 

“What did you mean, ‘catch up’?” she asked between breaths, parrying his retaliatory strike.

 

Gunther grunted.

 

“The tournament, of course,” he replied.  “There are the apprentice rounds and then the proper ones for the full knights.  Reginald and Derek will be knighted beforehand, so they won’t be competing with us.  _I_ intend to take the title of champion for the apprentice rounds.  _You_ will have the privilege of being runner-up.”

 

“Ha!  As if I’d let you win,” she reflexively snapped.

 

“Let me?” he scoffed.  “Of course not.  I shall simply best you, and all of the rest of the squires as well; and when I do, no one will be able to say that my father bought my knighthood.”

 

Jane caught another strike from his blade, and then swiftly moved to catch him when he tried to use his shield to knock her sideways.  She staggered, a little, her own shield blocking him off, before she slid sideways, quick as a flash.  There was a great scraping sound as well-worn metal slid against leather straps, and she smacked the flat of her blade against the side of his ribs before he recovered and fended her off.

 

“No,” she said.  “ _I_ shall take the title of champion; and when I do, no one will be able to say that a woman cannot be a knight.”

 

“Oh, please.  You could prove that point simply by thrashing a handful of squires, never mind a whole tournament.”

 

“And you could not do the same?”

 

 _“You_ will not face constant allegations of cheating,” Gunther replied, slipping past her defenses just long enough to land a stinging hit against her shoulder.  The blunted edge of his blade clattered against the buckles on her armour.

 

“No,” she said, gritting her teeth and staggering him with six rapid strikes.  “I will face constant allegations of _chivalry_.”  Then she dropped her voice into a low, mocking register.  “Oh, I only lost because I could not bring myself to strike a girl!  Oh, it is so unfair, I only wished to avoid hurting her!”

 

Gunther matched her tone, dodging her seventh strike and lashing back.  “Oh, my shield straps were weak!  That Gunther Breech must have fiddled with them!  Oh, the sun was in my eyes, his father must have paid to have it moved!”

 

At that, Jane couldn’t help but chuckle.

 

“Well, if he _could…_ ” she said, leadingly.  He made a face at her.

 

“Yes, and do you think that there are _not_ squires who will hold back out of the misguided belief that you are a lady of some sort?” he pointed out.

 

Recalling the early stages of her fight with Reginald, Jane’s expression darkened.  She landed a hit on his shield that made her teeth rattle, but got him to wince as well.

 

“Does your father know about the tournament?” she asked, trying to change the subject.

 

Gunther rolled his eyes.

 

“Of course he does,” he said.  “It’s a matter of prestige and potential honour for our family name.  I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to learn that he’s already been meddling.”  Over the years, Jane had noticed, Gunther had grown freer and freer with disparaging his father’s character in front of her.  She rather suspected it was because Magnus had already destroyed his reputation in her eyes, so there wasn’t much point in pretense.  And as much as he still strove to keep his father happy – or perhaps ‘appeased’ would be a better term – Gunther seemed to have more or less given up on pretending that he wasn’t an unpleasant piece of work.

 

“Can’t you-” she paused in order to avoid a sweep to her legs, and press the advantage of her successful dodge against him.  Gunther spun just shy of her blade, then met her follow-up with a parry that was nearly hard enough to knock her over.  She recovered swiftly.  “-distract him somehow?”

 

“I _had_ considered leaving a trail of gold coins from our doorstep out into the wilderness, but it would take a long time and there’s no guarantee that some passersby wouldn’t just pick them up instead,” he quipped.

 

“Perhaps you could convince him that some minor lord has slighted his name?  The revenge schemes would surely take precedence.”

 

“Think of the poor minor lord, why don’t you,” Gunther replied, clucking his tongue as they settled into a new rhythm.  “No innocent man should have my father inflicted so mercilessly upon him.”

 

“I suppose that is a fair point,” Jane agreed.

 

“Of course, if you should learn of anyone who goes about drowning kittens and kicking servants, feel free to recommend him.”

 

“I shall ask Pepper to keep an ear out.”

 

They ran out of breath for talking, then, as Jane attempted to overwhelm Gunther with too many strikes for him to reasonably meet, and Gunther attempted to break through her assault; a feat which would seem to demand that he become spontaneously double-jointed.  Their boots scraped over the packed dirt, kicking up tiny clouds where they shifted and spun, deflected, and lunged.  Jane over-extended her reach in one move, and nearly lost the match for it; Gunther got cocky, and tried for too flashy of an assault, and she smacked him clean across the chest with her small shield instead.  He let out a tremendous _oomph_ of breath, and in two swift moves she had knocked the practice sword from his hand, and leveled the tip of her blade at his collarbone.  By then the moon was clearly visible between the clouds overhead, round and full enough to cast them both in a soft silver glow.  Their heavy breaths filled up the quiet.

 

“Again?” she asked, relaxing her stance first.

 

He shook his head.

 

“It’s late enough already,” he replied.

 

With a nod of agreement, Jane set about putting her askew armour to rights, and cleaning off her practice sword and shield before returning them to their places.  Gunther hesitated a moment longer, staring up towards the sky, before he followed suit.  They worked in silence, and she expected they would part in silence, too, but he spoke to her again before she left.

 

“Get them angry,” he said.

 

She blinked, tried to figure out what he meant, and came up blank.

 

“What?”

 

He was standing with his back to her, facing the weapon’s rack and the targets.  In the dim light, he looked very dark; all grey leather armour and black hair, as if bits and pieces of him were bleeding away into the night.

 

“When you fought Reginald, he didn’t start seriously striking at you until you got him angry.  So when you’re in the tournament, if your opponent hesitates… do something to make him angry, and I don’t think he will hold back for very long.”

 

The disgruntled sigh she let out was more of a reflexive reaction to his tone than anything else, but she didn’t really know what to say.  It was actually a fair suggestion, and after a couple of awkward seconds, she settled for a nod of acknowledgement.  Which didn’t have much point, since he was still facing away from her.

 

“Thank you,” she said, to make it a little clearer.

 

Gunther shrugged.

 

“Everyone knows that you and I are rivals,” he replied.  “It would reflect poorly on me if you didn’t get very far.”

 

“Well… same to you, then,” she said, before turning away, breaking the moment and treading tiredly to her tower.  She hadn’t realized just how exhausted she was until she fell upon her mattress like a sack of potatoes, and it seemed like she had only just rolled over when she blinked and found that the morning light was streaming in through her window.

 

Jane stopped avoiding the practice yard during the daylight hours after that.

 

The squires and aspiring squires still gave her black looks, but no one seemed apt to make any more fuss about it than that, and for the most part, she was mercifully left to her own devices.  Gunther made irregular appearances in between his various duties.  He seemed to receive much the same treatment, though once or twice Jane was sure she saw someone slinging a mean-spirited comment or critique his way.  At times, when they ran into one another in the late evening or early morning, they would practice together as usual.  Jane’s resolve to improve had only been honed further into a bright, sharp spear of determination.  She would not settle for second place in the tournament.  The lost bout to Reginald had put enough of the taste of failure in her mouth, and she wasn’t eager for any more.

 

Unfortunately, that was also around about the time when her mother started getting _serious_ about things.

 

It seemed to Jane that her quiet stalemate with her mother over the matter of her future had been deteriorating ever since she had reached a marriageable age.  Not that too many girls _did_ get married at fourteen, but Jane was clearly at the beginnings of womanhood now – for all that her body was content not to show it overmuch – and her mother seemed to have woken up on the morning of her birthday and suddenly realized that Jane wasn’t in a hurry to get married.  Or put down her sword.  Or settle down in any way, shape, or form.  If anything, Jane was just beginning to pick up some real steam.

 

“But would it be so bad if you _married_ a knight, darling?” her mother asked after her one evening, whilst helping detangle the mess of her hair.  “Some of those young men are very impressive, in birthright as well as bearing.  And as a knight’s wife, you could still spend a great deal of time handling all those swords and armour and things you seem so set upon.  Many wives like to help maintain their husband’s gear.  They say it reassures them.”

 

Jane rolled her eyes towards the sloped roof of her tower, and forced herself to take deep, even breaths.

 

“If I only wanted to be a knight for the trappings, Mother, I would have sought to become a blacksmith instead,” she replied.

 

The brush paused in its heated war against her scalp, and her mother let out a sigh.  Jane hated such sighs.  She really didn’t want to cause her parents grief, but she couldn’t stop herself from being who she _was_ in order to spare them, either.  They had taught her that themselves, what seemed like ages and ages ago, when she was so small as to still clutch at her mother’s skirts and listen raptly to the tales that danced about Court.  Her parents had both always been tremendous storytellers.  It was they who first filled Jane’s head with dreams of knights, though, doubtless they had intended for their daughter to admire them rather than aspire to them.

 

“I worry for your future, Jane,” her mother said, soft and somber, and again, Jane rolled her eyes.

 

“Mother-”

 

“No, darling, listen to me,” she interrupted.  Then she shifted so that she held Jane’s shoulders in her hands, and in the reflection of the small mirror that Jane had begrudgingly set across from them, they both looked as different as night and day; the picturesque lady-in-waiting and the unruly girl squire.  “Let’s say that things go perfectly for you.  You finish your apprenticeship under Sir Theodore and become a knight of the realm.  And you and Dragon protect the kingdom, and earn the respect of the people, and perhaps manage to never get too hurt or too lost on your adventures.  So that goes on for some years, until the time finally comes when you are too old to wield a blade or wear your armour, or go running around the countryside with overly large lizards.  Then you set your sword down at last, and retire to whatever awaits you in your old age.  People will tell tales of you, I’m sure.  The Brave Lady Jane who defied convention and became a valiant knight.  People love such tales.”  Her mother smiled ruefully.

 

“That… sounds marvelous?” Jane put forward, a little uncertainly.  Not because it didn’t sound marvelous.  It did.  But because it was not at all in line with her mother’s concern, which meant there was probably a trick in it somewhere.

 

“It does,” her mother agreed.  “As a tale, it does.  But there is no room in that tale for so many things, Jane.  There is no room for a husband, or children, or grandchildren – and don’t roll your eyes again.”  The hands on her shoulders tightened, briefly, in rebuke.  “A knight has no time to spend invalided by the burdens of childbearing, or rearing.  I know you have no interest in such things _now,_ but does that mean you never will?  When you are older, will you look back on your life and regret that you missed your opportunities?  A man who is a knight may take a wife, and he will have children, and a household to come home to, a warm hearth waiting for him.  But no man will take a knight for his wife, and adopt the woman’s role in such things.  And even if you found a man who was willing to, he still could not bear your children for you.”

 

There was a brief moment of quiet.  Jane’s mother closed her eyes, and tilted forward to plant a kiss against the crown of her head.

 

“I wish that you would stop and truly _think_ before you spend your youth on adventure and glory, only to reach the end of your days and find that it was a hollow pursuit all along.  There is nothing in the world that I would trade for you and your father.  Do not throw such things away so lightly.”

 

Jane had no idea what to say to that.  It was a completely different tactic to the one her mother normally used to argue with her about her choices, and the sincerity in her voice defused most of Jane’s outrage before it could even reach her lips.  So she just sat there instead, and after a few moments her mother resumed her attempts at untangling her hair; silently at first, but before she left she had begun to speak again.  Normal conversation that time.  Castle gossip, and things that were being planned around the tournament, and how lovely the queen’s new gown looked, and the affairs her father had been handling for the king.  Her mother’s voice washed over her like a soothing lull, but even so, by the time she had left and Jane had climbed into her bed, she could not relax.  The night sky stretched out beyond her window, empty but for the stars.  She wished – fiercely – that Dragon had not been sent away, so that she could go and talk to him.  Problems always seemed much simpler when she could share them with him.

 

By her fifteenth toss and turn, Jane determined that, Dragon or not, she couldn’t just lay awake in bed any longer.  If she could not solve the problem keeping her awake, she could at least tire herself out sufficiently to no longer care.  With that thought, Jane pulled herself back up out of bed, and dressed – perhaps a little hastily – and made her way by moonlight to the practice yard.  The racks of weapons and gear had been put away inside, since rain clouds had been threatening overhead.  Rather than fetch them and risk waking anyone, Jane practiced her footwork instead, and her form.  It was strange – she’d never done it without at least a cursory weapon or stick or _something_ in hand before, and imagining a sword and shield was significantly different from holding them, compensating for the weight of them.  She had always been rather light on her feet, but without those burdens, she was even lighter still.  Her boots skidded over the dirt and her heart was soon hammering in her chest, like a drum in the quiet night, and it was almost like dancing.  Except not, because there were no stuffy dresses or crowded ballrooms, or rows of besotted nobles trying to keep pace with a musician’s beat.

 

When she finally finished, her breaths were deep, and her skin felt flushed against the cool night air.  There was just a hint of moisture clinging to it; no doubt undoing all of her mother’s hard work as it made her hair frizz.  Jane winced at the thought, running a hand across the side of her face.

 

She had never really thought about… having children, and such.  Perhaps abstractly, once or twice, in the way that everyone speculated about their future.  Being a wife had never seemed particularly appealing, but some small part of her had always just assumed that she would have children at some point.  Because that was what was done.  And maybe they would be knights, too, all boys, or a girl who was like her – or even a girl who was _nothing_ like her, who was sunny like Lavinia or gentle like Pepper, and who soothed her own mother’s disappointment in her.  Or a boy who did, because if Jane had learned anything, it was to try not to assume.  But she had, she realized, staring up at the pale grey moon overhead.  She had assumed that she could have what she wanted with as few sacrifices as possible, and that night, her mother had bluntly disabused her of the notion.

 

And she didn’t know what to think, or feel.  Being a knight was everything.  Not a hobby, not a temporary occupation, not something she ever, ever wanted to give up.  But family was very important, too.  She was her parents’ only child.  If she never had any children of her own, their line died with her.

 

 _Is it selfish?_ she wondered.

 

Of course, there was nothing to answer that question for her.


	2. Chapter Two

 

 

By the time morning came around, Jane was no closer to a solution to her dilemma. The problem had seeded itself thoroughly at the back of her mind, and no matter how busy she kept herself, or how pointedly she avoided her mother’s long, meaningful looks, she could neither shake it loose nor resolve it to her satisfaction. Sir Theodore and Sir Ivon set her and Gunther to work on helping prepare the tents for the tournament – putting some of them up, dragging standards to and fro so everyone would know where they were supposed to be, and, most trying of all, helping the servants make certain that everything was satisfactory by passing messages along to the knights through the other squires. Before long, Jane found herself grateful that years of spending time with Gunther had taught her how to communicate effectively through clenched teeth, and, going off of the look on his face, she would wager that he felt much the same.

 

The day was turning out to be both hot and damp, which didn’t help matters much. All around the castle, tempers were fraying as servants and nobles alike sweated through their clothes and tried futilely to escape the muggy air. Whether out on the field or inside the castle, though, there was little relief to be found. Jane’s head itched terribly under the weight of her damp curls, and she tried not to feel too jealous of the men, who were free to take off their shirts and alleviate at least _some_ of their misery. Gunther had not bothered, at least, and before long was starting to look a little bit like an angry wet cat. Jester mentioned as much while he perched on one of the castle walls, clad in his undershirt and using his hat as a fan.

 

In all fairness, though, the only person he let off more easily than Gunther was Jane.

 

“Lady Jane, looking lovely as ever despite this insidious heat attempting to make her skin as red as her hair,” he teased. “And ho! Look out! Here comes a wild rampaging pig! Quick, someone alert the swine farmers, it must have escaped… oh, no, begging all your pardons, it would appear it is only Brave Squire Reginald. Forgive me. The sight of so much hairy pink flesh must have confused my eye.”

 

Reginald attempted to knock Jester from his perch with a dirt clod, but he missed by a fair margin. Jester, utterly undeterred, proceeded to mock every single squire who passed by – and most did, as business had them all running to and fro.

 

“Good Squire Derek, did you know that the pimples on your back quite neatly match up to the constellation Virgo? Why, I’d wager that’s as close as you’ve ever been to a shapely young maiden!”

 

“Ah, Squire James, I didn’t see you there. Smelled you, though. Your scent has such a distinctive bouquet of rancid meat, old socks, and my grandmother’s tincture!”

 

“Why Squire Philip, I do believe you’ve got something on your upper lip. Some small collection of crumbs, perhaps from breakfast? No? Oh, it is supposed to be your _moustache?_ Well, I never would have guessed that in a thousand years!”

 

Nearly all of his jibes resulted in sharp objects or less clever insults being hurled his way, but Jester didn’t seem to mind in the least. The knights found it all to be good sport, and chastised any squires who complained; Jester was, after all, only doing his job. Though he was careful enough not to do it in the direction of the _senior_ knights, and thereby lose the privilege of their approval. Jane tried to relish the petty revenge, but she was far too tied up in knots and uncomfortable besides to really manage it. By the time she was sent to put up the standard for Sir Bertram’s tent, she was quite at the end of her tether.

 

“Careful with that,” a stern voice said, as she hauled the heavy fabric up towards the mounting post. “That’s the standard of my house, young lady, not a sack of laundry.”

 

“It shall need laundering either way if this weather keeps up,” Jane muttered back, before she remembered herself. “Er, that is… my apologies, Sir Bertram. I didn’t mean any disrespect.”

 

Sir Betram raised one thin grey eyebrow at her, but then sighed. His beard drooped around his chin in a very depressed sort of way.

 

“I imagine this confounded weather is making all of our tempers short. Well, get one with it then, girl. The sooner it’s done the sooner we can all be finished with this business.”

 

Jane nodded and set back to stringing up the standard.

 

“This isn’t proper,” Derek said, and she nearly jumped, because she hadn’t realized that he was close by at all. “It’s wrong, sending this girl to handle our standard. Here, you, give it to me. I’ll put it up. It’s a squire’s job.” He stepped towards her, and Jane narrowed her eyes at him. Like Reginald, he had a beefy frame, but he seemed to come by his a little more naturally and less from hard work. His muscles were buried beneath a layer of rounded fat, although she knew better than to think that made him any less strong. Sir Ivon had a similar build.

 

“That’s not even true,” Jane told him sharply. “It’s a servant’s job. But they’ve already got their hands full, so it’s been passed onto the squires. Weren’t you listening when Sir Theodore explained all of this before?”

 

Derek set his chin stubbornly.

 

“If it’s been passed on to the squires, then it’s a squire’s job _now,_ which still means you’ve no place doing it-”

 

“You’re really terrible at paying attention, aren’t you?” Jane interrupted. “ _I’m Sir Theodore’s squire._ Maybe if I say it enough times it’ll finally get through your impossibly thick skull.”

 

Sir Bertram actually chuckled at that, while Derek looked increasingly livid.

 

“Leave the girl to her tasks, Derek. You’ve enough of your own to be getting on with,” he advised.

 

“But-”

 

“That’s enough, lad,” Bertram said, much more sternly. “Don’t go picking fights where you’ve no need to. I thought you’d learned that lesson already.”

 

Derek shot Jane one last disgusted look, which she was certain she returned in equal measure, and then stalked off down the field and disappeared amidst the throng of activity. Sir Bertram sighed.

 

“You’ll have to forgive him. Derek means well, but young men often think that something is wrong in the world when it does not conform to their expectations.”

 

Jane got the standard up, and pushed some of the drooping strands of her hair off her forehead. What she wouldn’t have given for a good strong breeze! She glanced towards Sir Bertram, and considered his comment.

 

“But older men think differently?” she asked.

 

He chuckled.

 

“Older men learn that things are very rarely what they expect, and that even when they seem to be, it’s usually a lie. You’re to be a knight by decree of the king himself, and a mandate from the king should take precedence over any other opinions,” he said. “Besides which, I have never known Sir Theodore to treat people cheaply. If he says you are his squire, then that is what you are.”

 

Something eased inside of Jane at his words, just a fraction of an inch. She had never met another knight like Sir Theodore before. If it weren’t for the squires, she imagined that she would actually enjoy having Sir Bertram around, and maybe even a few of the other knights as well.

 

“Sir Theodore speaks very highly of you,” she said.

 

“Does he?” Sir Betram replied, with a smile. “I’m glad he doesn’t do it to my face.”

 

“What?” Jane blinked.

 

“Oh, Theodore and I go back ages,” Sir Bertram explained. “We’ve been sniping at one another since we were squires. I think we must have competed in every trial, fought against one another at every tournament, crossed blades on countless practice fields. It’s an old tradition between us. The only time I ever heard Theodore sing my praises where I could hear him was when he thought I was dying. He was horrified when my fever broke and I still remembered it all.”

 

Jane chuckled at the thought of that. Sir Theodore didn’t fluster easily.

 

“Alright then, off with you,” Sir Bertram said, smiling back at her and making a shooing motion with his hand. “There are tasks left undone, and I won’t be scolded again for distracting squires with my ramblings. Go on.”

 

She went, but it was with a slightly clearer head than she’d arrived with. Her worries were still there, but they didn’t quite gnaw on her as they had before. Sir Betram had made a very good point, and one that she had nearly forgotten; it was the king who had said that she could be a squire. The king himself who thought that she was worthy of becoming a knight of his realm. Sir Theodore believed in her, too, and so did her friends, and it seemed that other people thought that there was something to the idea. A knight’s true ambitions were not for personal glory, but for the good of the kingdom. Jane knew that she would definitely serve the kingdom better as a knight than as anything else, even if her family would probably benefit more from a daughter who would marry and settle down. Those thoughts didn’t really solve her dilemma, but they gave her more certainty that the path that she was on was not necessarily as selfish as it might seem, even if she wanted it dearly.

 

Towards the castle wall, where Jester was continuing in his self-appointed crusade to see which squire he could provoke into climbing up after him first, Pepper had dragged out a table and was handing refreshments out. Mostly water and small snacks. It was too warm and busy for anything substantial. Jane headed towards her, and vowed that if no frantic servants or helpers or other squires accosted her, she would take a proper breather for a few moments. On the far side of the field, one of the big tents finally went up. There was a scattering of applause and hoots to celebrate the achievement. Jane spied Gunther and Smithy near one of the corners, and saw them clap each other on the back. A few of the people clustered around Pepper’s table lifted their drinks and called out.

 

“Maybe don’t drop the next one so many times!”

 

“You lot remembered to tie it down properly, right? It’d be a fair sight if the wind kicked up and took off with her!”

 

They received some rude gestures in return, and laughter was shared all around.

 

“Leave the comedy to the professionals, why don’t you!” Jester shouted after them.

 

“Hello, Jane!” Pepper greeted, and waved her over. “You look absolutely frazzled! Here, drink this. I wish I could offer you a seat, but there’d never be enough chairs to go around, so I didn’t bother with any.”

 

“That’s alright, Pepper,” Jane assured her, taking the cup that was thrust into her hands.

 

“It certainly is busy today. I hope we have enough time to get everything done. At least there’s no need to cook anything fancy, the Queen’s practically banished any warm foods from her table until this heat wave dies down, and I don’t blame her one bit. If only we’d known it was coming, we could have done all this yesterday and saved ourselves some trouble,” she tutted.

 

“We’ll get it done,” Jane assured her.

 

Pepper nodded, but was swiftly taken over with the busy task of keeping everyone hydrated and relatively happy. The movement of the crowds forced Jane to the side, and she ended up near an oak tree at the edge of the field, a fair distance from the castle walls. A few of the younger squires had sought refuge in the shade underneath, though it seemed that several swarms of bugs had had the same idea. Jane lingered awkwardly nearby and drank her water. She hadn’t intended to eavesdrop, but there wasn’t really much else to do, and the squires’ voices carried.

 

“I’m just saying, at least she’s of noble blood,” one of them said. “Turnkeys have served the realm for generations. You can’t say the same for Breeches. That’s common blood, through and through, and as disreputable as it comes. I’m surprised they didn’t hang his father for a traitor after the war.”

 

“So you’re saying, better a lady knight than a commoner knight?” another asked, with a snort. “At least a man can be taught to fight, no matter his station. A woman’s too weak to learn, no matter her pedigree.”

 

“Imagine taking her on a battlefield!” another interjected. “She’d probably get half the men killed while they were busy rescuing her from her own sword.”

 

Jane saw red, and gripped her cup so tightly it creaked. Her knuckles turned bone-white from the pressure.

 

“Did you see her fighting Reginald?” the first one countered. “It was almost decent.”

 

“Reginald says he made her look good on purpose,” the third one said.

 

The first squire snorted.

 

“Right, because that’s Reginald for you. He’s a _giver_ ,” he replied. “It’s not like he’d want to cover his tracks about taking several hours to beat a girl at fighting or anything like that.”

 

“Well, what was he supposed to do? He might’ve injured her if he’d fought her properly, and then there’d have been no end of complaints from her family,” the second insisted.

 

“At the finish, he put his boot on her head and made a complete bastard of himself. If my master had seen that, he’d have beaten the tar out of him,” the third pointed out.

 

The first one winced.

 

“And then it was Breech of all people who stopped him. A practice field full of would-be knights and the only one who stood up for the lady was that slimy merchant’s son. The whole thing was a disgrace all around. At least with the Turnkey girl, you can respect her nerve. I might not want her on the battlefield with me, but I don’t expect she’d stick a knife in my back, either. But Breech? One minute he’s pretending to be all valiant, and the next he’s skulking around in corners and looking shifty-eyed at the rest of us. I don’t like it,” he insisted.

 

“I don’t like either of them,” the third squire said, with an air of finality. “It’s not right, them being trained for knighthood. What’s next? My horse can keep his head in a fight, maybe _he_ should be made a squire, too.”

 

“Better your horse than those two, I say!”

 

There were snickers all around. The second boy smacked at a fly that had landed on his arm.

 

“I’ll say this, it might not have been all that chivalrous, but I think Reginald had the right idea with putting that girl’s head to the dirt. Women get uppity when you don’t put them in their place. That’s what my father always says. You let them run rampant, and the next thing you know you’ve got girls like Turnkey, making a mockery out of the knighthood because a bunch of old men keep on indulging them.”

 

“Still doesn’t explain Breech, though. But then again, Sir Ivon doesn’t look too bright…”

 

Jane wanted very badly to march over to that tree and thrash them all. She could no longer hear what they were saying past the roaring of her own angry blood in her ears. In a flash, she saw herself flying at them. She saw _exactly_ what she could do to them. She would catch them unawares, as they seemed completely oblivious to her presence. The first one was leaning forward a little; if she smacked his head, it would hit the tree trunk, and disorient him at the least. The second looked a little softer than the other two. A quick knee to the gut would knock the wind straight out of him, and then she could put him in the tree, too. The third might run for help, but more likely, he’d try to subdue her. He was fairly tall; probably in the middle of a growth spurt. From the way he was shifting, she would guess that his joints ached because of it. Gunther had gone through a growth spurt last year, and it had made him ridiculously easy to beat in a fight before he’d adjusted to his change in height and stopped hurting every morning. Even if it came to grappling with the third squire, Jane was pretty sure she could beat him – but maybe not before his comrades recovered.

 

Still. It would be enough to do them some harm.

 

Almost as soon as the thought came it left again, and Jane felt a strange sort of calm settle into her afterwards. She was still furiously angry, but it was burning cold instead of hot. The last time she had let her temper send her headlong into a confrontation, it had cost her dearly. Caution was a lesson that she was slow to learn, but it seemed that it had finally started to stick, because as outraged as she was, she hadn’t yet lost her head. So she did not rush over to the tree and fight them. She did not bash in any skulls or plant her knee in anyone’s gut. But neither could she simply turn and walk away.

 

Jane marched over to the tree, coming at if from the angle facing away from the squires, so that she was nearly upon them before they noticed her. When one finally did, he elbowed the other, and all three turned to stare at her. The first at least had the good grace to look a little bit sheepish. Though he had been the least uncomplimentary in his words regarding her, Jane did not view him any more kindly than she viewed the rest.

 

“It must be quite nice,” she said.

 

The trio glanced awkwardly between themselves.

 

“What?” the third one asked her, after a beat.

 

“I was simply thinking to myself, it must be quite nice, to stand there and believe that you know better than the king. And Sir Theodore. And Sir Ivon, of course. How wonderful it must be, to feel wiser than knights more than twice your age, and the very man that you’ve sworn an oath to serve. I think it must be spectacular to be so proud of your accomplishments that you’re sure they’re perfectly compared to befriending a dragon, rescuing a prince, carrying the banner for the castle’s three hundredth anniversary, or any silly little thing like that. I wish _I_ had that kind of certainty. I think if I were you three, I’d be awfully worried about how a merchant’s son who balances his days between training at the castle, doing his duties as a squire, _and_ working tirelessly for his father is probably going to turn out to be a better knight than me, when I _only_ have to focus on being a knight. And I’d be worried about the fact that the girl whose skills and character I keep maligning is probably going to kick my sorry, dog-faced skull straight into the dirt once the tournament comes around, and there’s nothing between her and me but some leather and a sword. But you three, you really have it all figured out, don’t you? You’re not worried at all. How marvelous for you,” she concluded.

 

Then she turned on her heel, and marched off, ignoring the sputtering and shouted insults that followed behind her.

 

She hadn’t hit them, but that had still felt quite satisfying. It would probably feel even _more_ satisfying if she could beat them all in the tournament. She walked for quite a ways, and it was only once the strange, cold anger slipped away that she realized that she was clutching a broken cup and quite uncertain where her steps had taken her. A few nearby servants were giving her wary looks. She supposed her expression probably showed some of her lingering rage, and quickly schooled it into something less furious. After a few moments she managed to get her bearings back, and returned to Pepper’s table. The crowd around it had thinned out some, and the second tent was going up. Jane felt a twinge of guilt for putting off helping so long. She returned the cup to Pepper, with an apology – “it, um, had an accident” – and then sprinted towards the tent, where she was immediately set to work again.

 

The rest of the day passed in a blur of activity, but finally, the tasks were done and the tents were set. An informal celebratory feast was thrown afterwards, as the sky turned grey, and finally opened up and dumped bucket loads of rain onto all of them. It was almost as if it had been politely waiting for them to finish. Everyone sheltered where they could, and the kitchen staff brought people bowls of fresh melon and berries and diced fruit, and slices of yesterday’s ham on crusty bread. Jane ended up eating hers while she perched underneath the awning that covered part of the outdoor dining table in the courtyard, leaning up against the stone wall with Gunther and Rake. The rain brought out the dusty scent of the stone behind them, and the food tasted a little bit like the weather. But it wasn’t bad at all.

 

“If I never have to work in heat like that again, I will die a happy man,” Gunther said.

 

“It’s the worst when it’s muggy,” Rake agreed. “The plants like it, though. As long as it doesn’t last for too long. Otherwise, they might get rot-” he was off and running then, babbling on about gardening as Jane listened with an ear more for his tone than the actual words he was saying. Eventually Pepper came and asked if he’d help her move something in the store room, and Rake agreed and followed her off like the large-eyed puppy that she always turned him into. That just left Jane, standing nearly elbow-to-elbow with Gunther. She hadn’t realized how close by he was until they were alone together.

 

After a moment’s thought, Jane mentally shrugged, and then leaned over to nick one of the berries out of his dinner bowl. He scowled at her, and then stole the last piece of ripened melon from her dish in retaliation.

 

“Ha!” he declared, as he chewed around it. Jane rolled her eyes at him.

 

“Jester was right, you know. You _do_ look like a drowned cat,” she said, before primly popping her own stolen treat into her mouth. Gunther scowled.

 

“Well you look as red as your hair,” he countered.

 

“Really?” Jane wondered, prodding at her cheeks with some concern. It would be just her luck if they burned. Mercifully, they only felt stiff at the very tops, though, and across the bridge of her nose. It was probably the best that she could hope for, all things considered.

 

“Vanity, Jane?” Gunther teased.

 

She snorted.

 

“Fear of sunburn, more like.”

 

Glancing towards him, she saw that his own face hadn’t escaped unscathed. High up on his cheekbones and, yes, across his nose, she could see the angry red marks that promised to turn dry and painful and then peel away, like a snake sloughing off its skin. Without thinking, she reached over and prodded at his cheek, just as she’d prodded at her own. He blinked at her.

 

“It looks like there’s been plenty to go around,” she told him.

 

His own hand snapped up and started poking at the skin of his face.

 

“Oh, no,” he groaned, slumping back and letting his head rest against the wall behind them and closing his eyes. “That charlatan physician. I paid a small fortune for a cream that he _swore_ would keep my skin from burning! I should have known he was a fake,” he grumbled. “Of course he was a fake, he’s friends with my father. I can’t _believe_ I wasted all that coin.”

 

Jane leaned over and peered at him.

 

“Well, if it’s any consolation, your skin does look quite nice apart from the burns,” she said. “I wasn’t going to mention it, but it almost seems to have the same healthy feminine glow as the queen’s.” Then she reached out and stole another berry from him.

 

He cracked an eye open and glowered at her.

 

“Why am I standing here, listening to this abuse and letting you steal my food?” he wondered. Jane got the vague impression that he was asking the universe in general more than he was asking her in specific, but as the universe couldn’t speak for itself, she decided that she ought to answer him anyway.

 

“So you can enjoy my splendid company, of course,” she declared.

 

“Right,” Gunther replied with a nod. “I’m leaving.”

 

Jane snickered. They were both essentially done with their meals anyway, so it wasn’t as if either of them was going to stay put for much longer. Gunther downed the contents of his bowl in a last scoop of his fingers, and after a second, Jane reached for it.

 

“Here,” she offered. “I’ll take it with mine back to the kitchens.”

 

“Mind you don’t crush it, I doubt Pepper will appreciate it if you destroy any more of her dishware,” Gunther replied.

 

Jane looked up at him in surprise, and caught the moment when Gunther’s own eyes widened briefly, and he knew that he’d given something away without meaning to. He glanced at her, and then reached down to straighten his shirt, turning as if to start walking away.

 

“You saw that?” she asked, stopping him.

 

“Yes,” he admitted.

 

“How much of it?” she wondered.

 

He shrugged, and she thought for a moment that he was considering carefully what he should say, and that was a kind of answer in itself; if he hadn’t seen anything of substance, he wouldn’t feel the need to tell any lies, or edit any answer.

 

“…All of it,” he said, after a few seconds had slipped past.

 

“Oh,” Jane replied. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She couldn’t say that she was embarrassed – it wasn’t as if she felt that she had conducted herself poorly, or said or done anything regrettable. Still. Gunther might have been better at handling his emotions, but he _had_ them, and considering how unpleasant the squires’ comments were, a part of her, she was surprised to realize, wished that he hadn’t heard them. It was one thing to know that people were talking behind your back. It was quite another to actually hear them do it, in every nasty, mean-spirited little detail.

 

“Do you really think I’m going to make a better knight than any of them?” Gunther asked her.

 

Jane stared at him uncomprehendingly for a moment, because that was a turn she hadn’t expected the conversation to take. It took her a second to realize what he was asking about. Had she said that? Yes, she supposed that she had. She cleared her throat, and shifted uncomfortably. She really ought to go back to her tower and get a change of clothes. Something that wasn’t covered in grit and her own sweat, and therefor itching like mad.

 

“Well. You know. Considering how deplorable they’ve all been, I don’t know that you should really take it as much of a compliment… but, yes,” she said.

 

Gunther turned towards her again. His brow was furrowed, and his mouth was set, and all in all his expression gave very little away. Jane knew that meant that he was either thinking furiously or feeling something acutely. Sometimes she envied his ability to keep his emotions off of his face. She’d spent half of her thirteenth year practicing on and off in front of a mirror, trying to figure out how he did it, but it wasn’t a skill she ever thought she would master. A long moment passed between them, with Gunther’s inscrutable stare and Jane’s scattered thoughts.

 

“Why?” he finally asked her. “Most everyone else seems to think that I’ll fail. Even Sir Ivon has doubts that I will truly take the oath at the end of my training.”

 

Jane’s eyes widened in shock, and her mouth dropped open.

 

_“What?”_ she demanded.

 

Gunther shrugged. “My father has made no secret of the fact that he allows for my service as a squire for the sake of political advantage. _Or_ that he doesn’t expect me to actually be knighted at the end of it. It… wouldn’t serve him well, if I swore my full service to the king. I am his only heir, after all, and there isn’t much profit in knighthood.”

 

“But that’s _your father,_ ” Jane protested. “Not _you.”_

 

He smiled a little bit at that, the corners of his mouth twitched upwards, before he raised his hand and wiped the back of his hand over his lips, as if to clear the expression away.

 

“Fealty to family is important, Jane,” Gunther replied. “In the views of many people, abandoning my obligations to my father would just prove how fickle and unreliable all we Breeches are. After all, if we aren’t even loyal to one another, how could we ever be loyal to anything?”

 

“That is preposterous!” Jane assured him.

 

“I don’t know if it is or isn’t, but it’s a common way of thinking,” he said, with a shrug that was a little too nonchalant to be convincing.

 

“ _Common thinking_ can go stuff itself,” Jane muttered. But her mind had already turned back towards the issues her mother had presented her with, that evening in her tower as she put a brush to her hair and talked about family. If anyone wanted to be a knight more badly than she did, it was Gunther. To think of him as anything else seemed ludicrous. She tried to imagine him as a merchant trader, dressed in flamboyant furs and rich cloths instead of his plain training leathers, and found that it was like trying to imagine Smithy in a ball gown, or Pepper in a full suit of plate armour. She could manage it, but it was obviously a joke, a ridiculous and ill-fitting image. Gunther could never be his father. Magnus was a man who took every shortcut, who found any way possible to avoid hard work, who never did a single thing honestly if he thought he could lie about it instead. Gunther was good at finding shortcuts, but that was usually because he had to be in three places at once and couldn’t afford to waste any time. He worked as hard as anyone Jane had ever met, to the point where she sometimes wondered if he ever actually slept, and most of what he did came with little or no reward. A fair few times, Jane had even caught him running back and forth between the completely contradictory agendas of the crown and his father, trying to live up to both of his obligations, even when it meant that he benefited from neither.

 

Gunther, Jane realized all at once, had been dealing with her new dilemma for almost all of the time that she’d known him – and it seemed that he hadn’t come up with a clear answer to it, either, as he still struggled between appeasing his father and striving for his own dreams. But sooner, rather than later, he was going to have to make a choice.

 

“You’re going to take the oath,” she said, because she knew in her bones that it was true.

 

Gunther stared at her for another moment, and then nodded.

 

“I am,” he said.

 

“Even though your father will be furious with you for it,” she pointed out. Almost immediately, she regretted it; that was tactless. But Gunther only shrugged, and leaned back against the wall.

 

“I’ve been trying to gain his approval for as long as I can remember, and it’s never worked,” he said. “It’s like tossing things into a bottomless pit. It doesn’t matter what I throw down there, I’m never getting anything back for it. Why should this be any different? No. I _will not_ sacrifice my entire life for what my father wants. His wants are endless. My lives are not.”

 

It was Jane’s turn to stare at Gunther for a little while, then, while Gunther stared at the ground instead.

 

“That sounds wise,” she finally told him. “Although I feel I must warn you not to liken your father to a bottomless pit around Jester. The fat jokes would last for _months.”_

 

Gunther snickered, his shoulders jumping a little bit in surprise, and the tension that had been lying thick on the air between them finally broke. Jane laughed, too, more from relief than from genuine amusement. When had she started having such somber conversations with everyone? It was ridiculous! She’d spent so much time since the knights had returned tying herself up into knots that it felt like ages since she’d just had fun. Dragon would be so disappointed in her. He was the absolute champion of having fun, and before he’d left he’d made Jane promise not to lapse in it without him.

 

“Come on,” she said, reaching over and grabbing Gunther by the forearm. “I bet the practice field is empty. Let’s go take these dishes back to Pepper, and then we can spar.”

 

He looked at her like she’d grown another head.

 

“In the _rain?”_ he asked.

 

“It will be good practice!” she insisted.

 

He groaned.

 

“I just want to find a dry place to lie down in and sleep for a week,” he protested.

 

“Come on, lazy-bones. What if it rains like this during the tournament? Then we’ll have an edge!”

 

She could see the exact moment when she had him, when the idea took root in his head and he decided that it wasn’t half bad, even if he didn’t like it. His left eye twitched a little, and he sighed. It made her laugh again, for some reason, and she all but dragged him towards the kitchens, listening to him grumble about mad redheads and freakish weather all the way. She kept a grip on his forearm to stop him from running off, even though she didn’t really think that he would. Pepper raised an eyebrow at them, but didn’t say anything, and Jane hardly noticed. At some point her grip had slipped from his forearm and into his hand instead. But then, seeing Jane Turnkey dragging someone around the castle by their hand was hardly unprecedented.

 

True to her expectations, it seemed that most everyone else had done the sensible thing and retired for the evening. The practice field was utterly empty. They retrieved some wooden swords from the store room, since neither felt like squeezing into their training gear, and readied their places across from one another in the streaming buckets of warm rain. The field had turned muddy, and Jane’s boots squelched and stuck with every step she took. She nodded to Gunther, and he nodded back, and then he charged her. The wood of his blade made a dull damp _thunk_ where it met hers, and sent up a chaotic sideways spray of water. Jane blew a wet strand of hair from her forehead, and grinned.

 

In a matter of seconds they were both soaked through, but in the relatively warm air, it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. It weighed down their movements, though, which were already slowed by the mud beneath their feet, and made their clothes stick in odd places and tangle uncomfortably with their movements. Jane’s hair, ordinarily light enough that its length wasn’t a problem, began to slap awkwardly against her face whenever she turned, and her usual advantage for speed was all but lost in the suction of the mud against her heels. More than once she felt a little tempted to call for a break and reach down and yank them off. But in a tournament that wouldn’t be feasible, and anyway, she doubted she’d have the energy afterwards to wash all that muck off of her feet.

 

Gunther swiftly realized that he had an advantage, and he pressed it. Jane was forced to meet blows that she ordinarily would have dodged. The strain was proving costly.

 

Still, it was, as she’d hoped, rather fun. Her heart beat fiercely in her chest, and she breathed in the rain-soaked air, tasting it along with the lingering sweetness of berries at the back of her tongue. Her tired muscles found new life, and on the other side of the space where their blades met, Gunther was grinning.

 

The bout ended when Jane toppled at last under the weight of one of his blows, and landed in the mud. Gunther extended her a hand after she yielded, but then pulled it back again at the last minute, making her slip and fall a second time. She glared at his chuckle, and then reached over and yanked at his ankles, forcing him to fall as well. A rain of mud spattered upwards after him, streaking her face and landing in clumps in her hair. She winced. Gunther sat up, and opened his mouth as if to protest. But then he saw her, and burst into laughter instead.

 

“You’re all spotted!” he declared.

 

Jane reached up a hand and flecked several globs of mud onto his forehead.

 

“There,” she replied with exaggerated sweetness. “Now we match.”

 

He sputtered a bit, but after a few seconds it seemed as if he simply gave up on indignation altogether, and went back to laughing. Then they hauled themselves to their feet, and set about pulling their dropped swords out of the mud. Jane’s shins were bruised and there was a large red welt forming on Gunther’s forearm, but all in all, they were relatively unscathed. The rain continued to fall, and Jane let it help her wipe away some of the muck. She was well and truly a mess, it seemed, and there would be no avoiding _some_ clean-up before she sought the respite of her bed. It was worse still for Gunther, who would have to trek all the way back into town first. Jane felt a momentary twinge of guilt for having kept him so long; it had been a bit selfish of her, perhaps.

 

“Again?” Gunther asked, and she raised an eyebrow at him.

 

“What happened to ‘I only want to find a dry place to sleep in’?” she wondered, nevertheless moving back into position. Gunther grinned and shrugged.

 

“I’ll be up all night cleaning off this muck anyway. I might as well thrash you one more time before I go, just to make it worth my while,” he replied.

 

“Ha! We’ll see who thrashes who,” Jane countered, and when they began again, it was she who went on the offensive.

 

In the end, Gunther did win again, but she made him work for every square inch of it. Night had well and truly fallen by the time he left. Afterwards, she trudged up to her tower and peeled off her mucky clothes, and scrubbed until the water in her basin was soupy and brown with mud, and all but collapsed onto her mattress. The rain thudded at the tower roof over her head. Jane thought about what it would be like to give up being a knight. She imagined herself as she would have been if she’d never become a squire, if she’d accepted her mother’s insistences that she become a lady-in-waiting. She probably would have been assigned to Lavinia by now. That wouldn’t be all bad. The princess was a joy to be around, and loved hearing stories and playing games. Jane would wear dresses and bind her hair into braids, and help Lavinia get ready in the morning, laying out the princess’s gowns and brushing her hair, helping her at banquets and listening to castle gossip with the other ladies, while her mother paraded a string of eligible suitors past her with increasing frequency over the years. She would have been awful at most of it, she knew. Some ladies wore their gowns the way a knight wore armour. They glided through the castle halls with a commanding presence that demanded respect. Even the ones who were not particularly beautiful could seize the attention of the room with the gravity of their confidence and personality. But that was not Jane, and it had never _been_ Jane. As a proper lady of the court, she would flounder. Her curtseys were awful, but her bows were graceful. She understood the demands of oaths and codes far better than the subtle nuances of politics, the unspoken promises and rules and layered conversations where ‘Lady Bethany has taken a country trip’ actually meant ‘Lady Bethany has gotten herself with-child out of wedlock’, and things like that.

 

For some reason, as she slipped off to sleep, Jane imagined Gunther right there beside her, dressed just as preposterously in a lady’s gown. She dreamed that the two of them were the very worst ladies-in-waiting, as unanimously agreed upon by all others, and they spent their time standing off in dark corners, listening to the others chatter while Gunther attempted to explain all of the subtle nuances to Jane, and Jane made Gunther laugh by poking fun at it, and they competed to see who could be worse at being a proper lady.

 

She woke up tangled in her blankets and giggling at herself.

 

Jane felt much lighter that day, even though it was also the day when the visiting knights from some of the neighbouring kingdoms began arriving to take part in the tournament, bringing with them their own servants and squires and heaps of logistical trouble as well. Pepper and most everyone in the kitchens were sent into a tizzy, rushing to get food prepared for an ever-growing number of people, and organizing the temporary helpers whom the castle had paid to come up and lighten the load of the preparations. Kippernium’s knights measured themselves against the visiting ones. There was a lot of standing and staring and exchanging formal greetings, and plenty of puffed-out chests and polished armour to go around. Jane snuck glances at all of the different banners and horses and variations in the styles of arms whenever she had a spare moment – which was rarely, because Gunther was at the service of his father that morning, and so she had Sir Theodore _and_ Sir Ivon both ordering her around as they dealt with the new arrivals. And whenever she stood still for too long, Pepper always seemed to materialize out of thin air and shove some tray or sack of something into her hands and tell her to carry it across the courtyard or out to the tournament tents.

 

Things were busy, but it was the good kind of busy, and the other squires were far too preoccupied with running errands and comparing themselves to the newcomers to find any time for disparaging remarks or disapproving glances. Jane helped at least half a dozen of them haul long tables and weapons racks out to the tournament tents, and between all of the lifting and grunting and shifting going on, no one really had an opportunity to dig in their heels and ask that the other set of helping hands be attached to a _male_ squire. She directed two of the new squires towards the stables when she overheard them mistaking _another_ new squire for a local one and asking him for help, and looked up from hauling several wine barrels out of the basement stores to find that the person helping her was actually Jester, and only realized that Gunther had arrived while she was in the process of shoving half a weapons’ stand at him and telling him to help her carry it to Sir Warwick’s tent.

 

It was that sort of day.

 

The next wasn’t much calmer. By the one after that, though, most of the visiting knights had arrived and been accommodated, and the banquet hall was full of revelry and the din of conversations and music. Some of the visiting entourages had brought along their own minstrels and bards, who had taken the opportunity to travel in search of new tales and songs. Jester was thrilled; he was developing a new taste for parodies. For her own part, Jane didn’t concern herself with it very much, not beyond the novelty of having some new entertainment at court, anyway. Sir Theodore and her mother both asked her to attend the banquet, and so she did, wedged awkwardly into one of the far tables with the other squires. She would have much preferred to just nick something from Pepper and eat by herself – Gunther must have done that, the lucky rat – but instead she found herself trying to listen to the minstrels and ignore the fact that everyone else at her table was ignoring her.

 

Some of the visiting squires and even a few knights shot her curious glances. She supposed that they were wondering what some strange girl was doing sitting at the squires’ table. Jane did her best to ignore them, too, and ate quickly, and managed to both keep her promise and avoid trouble; a winning combination, all in all.

 

And then the morning of the tournament dawned, bright and early, and she felt as if all of the sand had run out of an hourglass that she hadn’t even realized had been pouring.

 


End file.
